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The Crossbow and the Bow in Modern Warfare PDF

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arms & armour, Vol. 7 No. 1, 2010, 53–103 The Crossbow and the Bow in Modern Warfare Arthur G Credland Former Keeper of Maritime History at Hull Maritime Museum Introduction The crossbow was abandoned in Europe as a military weapon during the course of the 16th century and its place taken by the caliver and musket. It persisted, however, as a hunting weapon and in the form of a bow trap down to the last century. In the Low Countries and parts of France there has been a long tradition of target- shooting with the crossbow at both the popinjay and conventional marks. Many of the forms of target weapons which appeared in the 16th and 17th centuries have survived relatively unchanged and may be observed at the Kings shoots held per- iodically in Western Europe. At the event held at Peer (on the Holland-Belgium border) in 1979 the author observed old-style crossbows spanned by lever, others by windlass as well as modern crossbows drawn by hand (figure 1). The representatives of San Marino with their bench crossbows employed a cranequin unusual in the way it is applied to the stock. Instead of the more usual cord loop a pierced metal strap extending from the gear case is placed over a metal stud on the upper surface of the tiller. Since the 1960s there has been a major revival of interest in the crossbow both in the United States, where it is a popular hunting weapon, and in Europe where there is increasing support for match-shooting on the 30 m range. Thus we can see that the crossbow has never been completely laid aside in Europe and its modern development has been given a new impetus in North America. It is in the Far East, amongst the tribes of India’s north-east frontier and of Burma and Indo-China that this ancient arm has remained in continuous use for hunting and as an anti-personnel weapon. In China, where a crossbow with a sophisticated cast-bronze release mechanism was already in use in the Han dynasty, the repeating crossbow, a uniquely Chinese invention, lingers on in the remoter areas.1 Here it is employed as a bird-scarer in the rice fields but it was still appearing in a more aggressive role during our great grandfather’s day when they were observed in action during the China war of 1856– 60. We have indisputable pictorial evidence in the photographs taken by Felice Angelo Beato after the surrender of the Taku forts in 1860.2 The forts on the river Peiho guarded the approach to Tientsin (and ultimately Peking) and were reduced by © The Trustees of the Armouries 2010 DOI 10.1179/174161210X12652009773492 54 ARTHUR G CREDLAND figure 1 Flemish crossbow shooters at Peer, 1979. Author’s photograph a joint assault by Anglo-French forces. Photographs record the devastation caused by the explosion of the magazine and clearly visible, lying on top of a wooden platform above the Haxo casement, is a repeating crossbow (figures 2 and 3).3 This weapon is able to discharge up to 10 or 12 arrows at a very rapid rate by the simple expedient of cranking a wooden handle up and down. The action draws back the string and cocks the bow which is released almost immediately when another arrow drops into place by gravity feed and is similarly expelled. To achieve a simple easy action the bow is inevitably rather weak and the arrows are propelled only a short distance. One can, however, well imagine the psychological effect of a swarm of arrows shot from close range at an advancing enemy from a row of such devices mounted on a parapet. In the devising of silent weapons for clandestine warfare during the Second World War the European crossbow, with its pedigree stretching back to the early Middle Ages (and ultimately to the arcobalista of the Romans and gastraphetes (figure 4) of the ancient Greeks) as we shall see had little or no influence. In contrast the post 1939–45 war American development of target and hunting weapons, though using all the modern materials, fibre glass, duralumin, carbon fibre for bows and Dacron for strings, unmistakably draws its inspiration from the European heritage. Both the bow and crossbow were to make an unexpected contribution to the armoury of the Special Forces in Viet Nam. THE CROSSBOW AND THE BOW IN MODERN WARFARE 55 figure 2 The Taku forts, 1860; repeating crossbow on the battlements. Felice Beato Courtesy of the Council of the National Army Museum, London The two World Wars There is a gap of some fifty years from the Chinese wars to the Great War but in the 18th century during the long and desperate siege of Gibraltar by the Spanish, 1779–83, the governor, Lord Heathfield (George Augustus Eliott, 1717–90), caused to be made a version of a Roman catapult, a torsion weapon. It was used to throw heavy stones over the edge of a precipice, so that they might fall on a ledge of rock occupied by the Spaniards4 (figure 5). Two target crossbows in the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth, were captured by the British during the First World War. Both were target weapons of apparently Belgian origin (probably from the clubhouse of one of the many archery guilds) taken by the occupying German forces and pressed into service for trench combat. Indeed it was reported in Amsterdam, in neutral Holland, 24 December, 1914 56 ARTHUR G CREDLAND figure 3 Detail of crossbow in the Haxo casement; from another photograph of the Taku forts, 1860. Courtesy of the Council of the National Army Museum, London figure 4 Greek gastraphetes, invented c. 399 bc. ‘According to our Sluis correspondent of the Telegraaf, bows and arrows have been commandeered in Belgium’. The Flemings have always been excellent archers, and Bruges still possesses its ancient Guild of St Sebastian, of which Charles II was a member during his exile on the Continent. His handwriting is still preserved in the Guild Book. In the frontier communes the archers have taken their bows and arrows to the Netherlands for safety.5 The older and more elaborate example is an 18th or possibly late 17th century weapon with hair trigger release (figure 6), described in official records as follows ‘Crossbow used by the Germans in the early days of trench THE CROSSBOW AND THE BOW IN MODERN WARFARE 57 figure 5 Lord Heathfield’s catapult from the siege of Gibraltar, 1779–83. From unidentified book warfare to throw improvised percussion bombs to a greater distance than was possible by hand’. The bow was no doubt found in Belgium where archery was a fairly common pastime in peace time.6 The other crossbow, furnished with a gun stock, was taken 15 June 1915 during fighting at ‘Hooge’; this is ’T Hoge, Poperinghe (figure 7). At the outbreak of war there was a desperate shortage of trench mortars on both sides and the allies filled the gap with a variety of official and semi-official catapults (see below) and ‘projectors’ for bombs and grenades, but some of the French soldiery 58 ARTHUR G CREDLAND figure 6 Crossbow recovered from the trenches used by the Germans in 1914–18 war. Imperial War Museum figure 7 Trench crossbow. Imperial War Museum pressed into service the crossbows which they had used before the war. A photograph shows a group of five ‘poilus’ each with a crossbow, some have stirrups to aid spanning others are clearly ‘balance bows’ with their long stocks which were aimed resting on the shoulder with the rear portion extending behind, terminating in a heavy pommel to counterbalance the steel bow.7 Clandestine and irregular warfare As war seemed increasingly inevitable forward thinking individuals were outlining plans for irregular warfare and the concomitant weapons and equipment that might be needed. A report in 1938 by Maj. J. C. F. Holland, Royal Engineers was succeeded in the following year by the formation of MI (R) (Military Intelligence, Research) in the War Office. Maj. Laurence Grand, also of the Royal Engineers, seconded to the SIS produced a report entitled ‘Preliminary survey of possibilities of sabotage’ which resulted in the formation of a parallel organisation within SIS, known as Section IX or Section D.8 For a while the two units occupied a joint office in Caxton Street but at the outbreak of war Section D was transferred to Bletchley and MI (R) back to the War Office. Overcrowding at Bletchley Park as code-breaking activities expanded led to relocation at the Frythe (Station IX), a hotel near Welwyn in Hertfordshire and the experimental team to Aston Hall near Stevenage, Herts, THE CROSSBOW AND THE BOW IN MODERN WARFARE 59 known as Station XII or Signals Development Branch, another cover name. By 1941 the research and development section had moved to the Frythe while production, packing and dispatch of stores remained at Station XII and the organisation became the chief supplier to the Special Operations Executive.9 Amongst the items being produced in large numbers by the middle of 1940 were time pencils, explosives and various incendiary devices, including ‘incendiary arrows’ which ‘Resembled large safety matches about 18 in. long with a percussion fuze at the head. They weighed about 2½ oz and could be fired at a range of about 50 yards from a bow or a catapult, or dropped from aircraft’.10 The only indication as to where they found employment is a throwaway remark in a reminiscence by Lt. Cdr. A. J. G. Langley, the first commanding officer at Aston House, who arrived there from Bletchley in November 1939, ‘No longer would our FRS11 slip away early in the morning to supervise manufacture of the incendiary arrows we had devised and which were being used against the Italians in Abysinnia’.12 These arrows do not appear in the Descriptive catalogue of special devices and supplies compiled in 1944.13 Lt. Col. L. J. C. Wood succeeded as commandant of Aston House and during his time Lt. Col. William Ewart Fairbairn and Capt. Eric Anthony Sykes (who gave their names to the Fairbairn-Sykes ‘commando’ knife) were instructing potential agents at Station XII, including ‘the use of the knife, silent killing with sticks from four inches to six feet long; coshes, longbows, crossbows, catapults, garrotting etc.’.14 Irregular warfare and the USA Soon after the entry of the United States into the war, after the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, it became apparent there was a need for a specialist organisation for covert action against the enemy. The result was the formation of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) headed by William J. Donovan. Its existence led quite naturally to the setting up of a research and development group to create weapons and devices suitable for sabotage and subversive warfare. Designated Division 19 (Department of Miscellaneous Weapons) of the National Defence Research Committee (NDRC) it came into being on the 9th April 1943 though it derived from the so-called Directors Committee which itself devolved from Division B-9-C formed in 1942. Division 19 was largely created as a result of Donovan’s special requirements though he maintained a small research and development branch directly within the OSS organisation headed by Stanley P. Lovell who was the OSS representative to the NRDC. The close links between Division 19 and the OSS are emphasized by the fact that their laboratory was set up near Washington in a wing of the Congressional Country Club which establishment had already been leased to the OSS for training purposes. The Maryland Research Laboratory (MRL), as it became known, also developed a broader liaison with the regular army and navy as well as with the Inter Services Research Bureau in Britain. The ISRB was in fact the cover name for the SOE which appeared on the plaque outside their headq uarters at 64, Baker Street, 60 ARTHUR G CREDLAND London. There was a two-way flow of personnel and information which had begun in the days of Division B-9-C and helped lay the foundation of American activities in this cloak-and-dagger activity. Contact also gave the British access to the manu- facturing resources of the USA for the large scale production of such items as pencil time fuses.15 Against this background a predictable requirement placed before Division 19 was the creation of a silent, flashless, weapon suitable for the assassination of sentries up to a distance of about 50 yards. The result was a prototype pistol completed in March 1943 in which the propulsive power for an arrow-like missile was provided by a hollow helical spring. The pistol weighed just over 7 lb with an overall length of 14 in. and the spring generated a force of 3000 lb sufficient to eject a dart weighing 0.074 lb at 154 fps or one weighing .150 lb at 137 fps capable of penetrating a piece of ½ in. wood at 50 ft. It was abandoned because of serious recoil problems and the length of time, nearly 30 seconds, needed to rearm the weapon. Compressing the spring needed 27 turns of a winding handle which put the user in a vulnerable position between shots.16 Bows and arrows Then it was suggested that bows and arrows might be the answer and Dr Paul E Klopsteg, a noted authority on archery as well as an experienced engineer was duly consulted.17 Klopsteg had graduated in physics at the University of Minnesota in 1916 and became a research and development engineer in army ordnance during the First World War. In 1921, he joined the Central Scientific Company of Chicago, Illinois, with responsibility for its research and development department, and eventually in 1930 became its president. The design of bows and the study of their ballistic problems was Klopsteg’s recreational activity and with Dr Clarence Hickman18 he had analysed in detail their physical properties and behaviour; work which has made a significant contribution to modern bow design and manufacture.19 He was appointed in 1941 deputy chairman of the Division of Optical Instruments in the Special Services Department of the OSRD (Office of Scientific Research and Development), and two years later became a member of Division 19.20 Klopsteg came to the conclusion that a conventional bow was unsuitable for use in covert missions: its overall size made it inconvenient to carry about; the archer was highly vulnerable at the moment when he stood up to draw the bow; and most serious of all a weapon of suitable strength required the user to be a well-trained and experienced archer to achieve the necessary accuracy. It may be recorded here that Captain Jack Churchill of the Manchester regiment, and a member of the British team at the World Archery championship at Oslo in 1939, actually carried a bow on active service in France. The war diary of the 4th infantry Brigade tells us ‘One of the reassuring sights of the embarkation was the sight of Captain Churchill passing down the beach with his bows and arrows!’ Using a yew bow he created a certain amount of consternation on his section of the THE CROSSBOW AND THE BOW IN MODERN WARFARE 61 Maginot Line and later, during the retreat to Dunkirk, 27 May 1940, he actually shot a German soldier from 30 yards with an arrow at the village of L’Epinette near Bethune. The arrow struck the man right through the chest and he and his four compan- ions slumped to the ground as Churchill’s two companions opened up with rapid fire’ (figure 8) (See Appendix I).21 After the BEF retreat to Dunkirk the imminent threat of invasion from across the Channel led to the setting up of a network of ‘Auxiliary Units’, resistance groups intended as a guerrilla force to fight the Germans if they had succeeded in occupying Britain. Captain Peter Fleming (brother of Ian Fleming the author of the James Bond stories) was in charge of the Kent section, the first to be established: — ‘Fleming had packed the big barn ... from end to end and from floor to roof with explosives, ammunition and weapons — including half a dozen longbows for which he had indented through Auxiliary Units (cover name for the resistance organisation) supply channels. He hoped to teach his men to use the bows to hurl incendiary charges into German petrol dumps and to pick off sentries quietly. Fleming him self could kill a deer at a hundred yards with a bow and arrow, but his plan to train Resistance people to use such weapons never got very far’.22 A variety of accounts of the auxiliary units and their hideaways around the country exist and a good account of the East Yorkshire organisation is given by Williamson.23 figure 8 Hugh Soar, archery historian, with four of Jack Churchill’s bows: l to r Yew backed yew, draw weight 48 lb; Self yew bow, 47 lb, no maker or draw weight inscribed; Self lancewood bow 40 lb; Self yew bow, 40 lb draw weight. 62 ARTHUR G CREDLAND Though Fleming had anticipated silent means of sniping at any German who came in easy range his men never had the opportunity to engage the enemy ‘but they did discover other uses for their bows and arrows — fitting the latter, for instance, with incendiary heads to set thatched roofs on fire, or strapping to them detonators and short lengths of safety fuse’. A missile thus equipped and shot over the heads of the outposts would cause a ‘brisk and unexplained explosion’ and a certain amount of confusion within enemy lines.24 Though these were of course just night exercises. Anders Lassen, a Dane recruited into the SAS in the 1939–45 war, was an enthu- siastic exponent of the bow and arrow and persuaded the war office to supply him with two sets. During exercises in Scotland he managed to shoot everything from sparrows to stags but whether he ever employed his archery skills against the enemy is uncertain.25 A friend described his ‘ability to fire a bow so accurately on the run that he could drop a deer dead with one arrow from eighty metres’.26 There was a considerable vogue for bow hunting in Denmark in the 1930s27 but Lassen’s interest in the bow as military weapon may have been inspired by reports from the Spanish Civil War of Carlist raiders ‘all in black and armed with short black bows and arrows, [who] infiltrated Republican trenches on night raids and killed sentries silently on challenge.’28 Another Dane, Thomas Sneum, working in occupied Denmark as an MI6 agent had planned to use a bow to assassinate Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS, while visiting Copenhagen in 1941. He bought a take-apart steel longbow, no doubt a Seefab bow manufactured by See Fabriks Aktiebolag (Sandviken, Sweden) the firm which in the 1930s had developed bows made from flattened steel tubing, for target shooting, ‘you could quickly assemble or fold away as you liked.29 It didn’t take up too much room and I had used a long bow as a child to hunt birds and rabbits. But to draw back this bow required a force equivalent to lifting a twelve -stone man; and it weighed seventy-five pounds. The power it unleashed meant that the arrows, wooden with duck-feather flights, were lethal’ [the biographer has clearly misunderstood Sneum’s description; no doubt he was saying that the draw weight was 75lb and that he as a 12 stone man could handle this strength of bow]. The beauty of the longbow is that it can be a silent killer, and I felt confident that I could escape the scene before the Germans could pinpoint the source of the arrow. With luck, I would be able to carry out the perfect assassination. So I went into Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens, and put targets up on trees. After a while, I could hit playing cards from 50 metres. Then I went back to Fanoe and practised against moving targets. The seagulls gliding along had no chance against my steel longbow. I knew it would be a much harder challenge to hit a moving German while aiming downwards from an apartment window, but I believed that from fifty metres I could not only hit a man but strike whatever part of his body I was aiming for. As part of my preparations, I even wrote ‘9 April 1940’ — the day of the invasion — on my arrows.’30

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